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The New Zealand Open Source Society is a charitable, non-profit organisation set up to educate, advocate and advance the use of Free and Open Source Software in Government, Business and Society in New Zealand.
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New to Free and Open Source Software? Learn how to educate, advocate and advance the use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in New Zealand.
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Oracle has been on the side of Linux for some time now, and was one of the few companies to advertise Linux. The Unbreakable Linux campaign may not have been totally accurate, in that Linux is no security silver bullet, but it did spread the word that Linux was now supported by large mainstream vendors. In this weeks ComputerWorld we see comment on Oracles involvement with Open Source.

Microsoft have recently announced a new partnership with Creative Commons, the organization dedicated to providing content producers a legal alternative to "all rights reserved" copyright law, to offer a new tool for easy insertion of Creative Commons licenses into works created with Microsoft Office.

Red Hat is getting more serious about supporting New Zealand by establishing a technical and marketing person in New Zealand. Red Hat, one of the most popular commercial distributions of Linux has had a low profile in New Zealand until recently. ComputerWorld have been running Red Hat banner advertising, and there has been improved communication with the local open source community.

Nandor Tanczos has long been a supporter of Open Source, and has made efforts to introduce Open Source applications to Parliament. Today the New Zealand Herald published a opinion article from Nandor on Open Source. Nandor says "To me, open source has been a perfect illustration of the Green Party belief that an open, co-operative decision path makes the most ethical, economic and environmental sense."

A new IT news web site has started up called m-net.net.nz, and it has a specific section on Open Source. This week it has a story titled "Open Source Technologies in New Zealand" which details the state of play of Open Source in New Zealand.

On the new IT News web site mnet.net.nz there is an article about Microsoft reaction to the new version of the SSC Legal Guidelines on open source. Brett Roberts of Microsoft says that the document does a good job of explaining the complex issues around licensing and indemnification.

In a major advance for interoperability and open standards, on 2 June 2006 the Danish Parliament adopted unanimously a decision that imposes on the government a duty to ensure before 1 January 2008 that the public sectors use of IT is based on open standards and that all digital information and data that the authorities exchange with citizens, companies and institutions, are available in formats that are based on open standards. The roadmap for implementing the decision is expected to be considered later this summer.

Dell says that Linux now makes up 25 percent of its enterprise market.

Excerpt:

"As part of Dell Service we have managed over 500 Unix to Linux migrations," Parker told ZDNet UK. "We see that growing, not shrinking, over time."

Linux is now "over a quarter of what we sell", said Parker.

Virtually all of the business has come from customer migrations from proprietary Unix environments, from companies such as IBM and Sun.

"We have been successful in helping customers convert from Unix," said Parker. "What those customers feel most comfortable with is what they view as an open source version of Unix. They feel comfortable with the capability and reliability of Linux."

The European Commission, which originally supported software patents has reversed its position, and now wants to exclude software from being patented. Last year the commission fased off against the European Council which opposed software patents. This is in stark contrast to the proposed New Zealand Patent Bill which not only does not exclude software, but also fails to address concerns over the ease which software patents are granted, leaving citizens to fight expensive legal battles even when prior art exists.

The Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) has threatened to prosecute educational establishments who use improperly licensed software.

The pressure group, which lobbies on behalf of the proprietary software industry, has threatened to take headteachers, schools, and Local Education Authorities (LEAs) to court if they are found to have any unauthorised software.